[Editors] MIT: New tech can detect nuclear material in cargo containers

[Teresa Herbert]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUESDAY, SEPT. 23, 2008

Contact: Teresa Herbert, MIT News Office
T. 617-258-5403   E.: therbert at mit.edu

=====================================
Examining cargo at the atomic level
--MIT imaging technology could help detect nuclear material inside  
cargo containers without opening the doors
======================================

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- More than 11 million cargo containers enter U.S.  
ports annually and that number is expected to dramatically increase in  
the next 20 years. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents might  
benefit from technology developed by an MIT professor, which could  
enable screeners to examine the contents of a cargo container for the  
presence of radiological or nuclear material, without having to open  
the container.

MIT Professor William Bertozzi’s new technology reveals the cargo’s  
atomic composition, which is an enhancement over current systems. The  
technology could also be used for cargo validation for tax revenue  
compliance, product safety or origin certification.

Bertozzi and private capital backed Passport Systems Inc., are  
developing the technology, known as nuclear resonance fluorescence  
imaging (NRFI), with additional funding from the Department of  
Homeland Security and Office of Naval Research.

Unlike X-rays, which only reveal the two-dimensional shape of an  
object, NRFI can determine the atomic composition of cargo — whether  
it’s a harmless shipment of televisions or a load of radioactive  
uranium-235, which can be used to make a nuclear bomb.

Bertozzi, along with former MIT professor Bob Ledoux and Gordon Baty  
’61, SM ’63, PhD ’67, founded Passport Systems in 2002. At the time,  
they intended to use their detectors to find traditional explosives,  
but in the past few years, the company and the U.S. government have  
also turned their attention to detecting nuclear threats.

“We’re in a very different realm than what we originally thought it  
would be used for,” Ledoux said.

Bertozzi first came up with the idea more than 15 years ago, after Pan  
Am Flight 103 was blown up by terrorists. As a graduate student at  
MIT, Bertozzi had studied nuclear resonance fluorescence, though it  
wasn’t his main research focus.

“All of the sudden it dawned on me that this might be a viable  
technique” to detect explosives, he says.

Bertozzi patented his idea and several companies were interested in  
developing the technology but the government’s interest waned, and the  
project didn’t get off the ground. However, everything changed after  
Sept. 11, 2001, and Bertozzi resurrected the idea.

“The damage to our nation's economy from the effects of an attack  
through the supply chain with a nuclear weapon (WMD) would be enormous  
and would adversely affect all segments of our population, seriously  
altering our nation’s culture,” Bertozzi said. “We are developing new  
technologies that will provide significant improvement over existing  
non-intrusive inspection technologies to help ensure that our nation  
is safe from such attacks.”

In about a minute, the detector can determine what’s inside a  
container, without opening it. And, unlike X-rays, NRFI can detect the  
isotopic composition of a material even when it’s shielded by lead.

NRFI technology detects the energy level of photons emitted by nuclei  
as they decay. Every element, and every isotope of an element, emits  
photons with a specific energy level. Thus NRFI can distinguish not  
only between different elements, but different isotopes of the same  
element, such as uranium-235, which is used in nuclear weapons, and  
uranium-238, which is not.

Such detectors could also help protect U.S. economic interests by  
checking to make sure a container reportedly filled with, for example,  
low grade stainless steel products isn’t actually carrying higher  
grades that would look the same to an X-ray scanner and thus avoid  
payment of the correct tariffs. The applications for verification in  
commerce are numerous.

Ledoux says the company has a good grasp on the science underlying the  
detection system and has identified signatures for the bomb-making  
materials they are trying to detect. They have recently completed a  
successful test of the technology for the U.S. government and are now  
looking to develop commercial products.

By Anne Trafton, MIT News Office

# # #Teresa Herbert
Media Specialist
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
News Office, Room 11-400
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307

Phone: 617-258-5403
Fax: 617-258-8762

therbert at mit.edu




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